


Walking a Different Road

by Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Series: Watching Death [1]
Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Disabled Protagonist, GFY, Other, Queer Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27842572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Series: Watching Death [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2113626
Comments: 24
Kudos: 59
Collections: Highlander Holiday ShortCuts 2020





	Walking a Different Road

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amand_r](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amand_r/gifts).



When they first meet, the man is blood-soaked and standing over the decapitated body of his commanding officer. Joe empties his gun into the man and when he's down, goes to collect the dog tags from Cord.

He doesn't get a mile before he finds a mine the hard way.

When he wakes up, he's on something soft, and the room is pitch-black. He turns his head, trying to see something, anything, but there is nothing, not even the glimmer of light around a door. Trying to get up only reveals his wrists are bound to something - not metal, when he runs his fingers over it. Wood, maybe. And the bindings aren't metal, either, but he can't quite tell what they are. His wrists are wrapped in fabric under the bindings.

How long he's there alone in the dark, he has no idea, but he dozes off again, and wakes this time to the soft light of oil lamps, that shows him a room devoid of windows, and a man sitting in a chair nearby. The man who'd decapitated Cord, and who he had shot.

Joe jerks away, brought up short by the bindings still holding his wrists.

"Yes, I'm still alive." The man looks up from the book he'd been reading when Joe woke up, answering the question Joe hadn't even voiced. "So are you."

"How?" Joe glances down quickly, though he's not certain what the bindings on his wrists are. Not cord and not chain, that's all he's certain of from the brief glance. Especially not when he's distracted by the end of the bed. The empty end of the bed where he swears his feet feel they should be.

"I heal quickly, and I've long been familiar with battlefield medicine." The man shrugs, closing his book. "If you're not going to be foolish enough to try to get up, I'll untie your hands."

With his legs apparently missing, getting out of the bed is not an option, not yet. Not without a chair or crutches or something. It's easy to agree to stay in the bed for now.

"You could have left me at the base." Joe rubs his wrists when they're free, the texture of the fabric pressed into his skin where he'd been pulling at the bindings in his sleep.

The man snorts, a sly smile on his face. "If I were interested in explaining why I'm in Vietnam, there are less boring and irritating ways than an interrogation by the US military."

Joe narrows his eyes. "Why would they be concerned about you being here?" Other than whatever led to him decapitating Cord, or not dying when he's shot.

The man shrugs. "Because I am who I am, because they want me dead, because their allies hate or fear me. Pick your reason."

None of those sound good, and it's all irritating, like sand in his socks. Evasive.

"Am I prisoner here, than?" Joe would prefer to go home, but if his host - his captor - is a person of interest to the US military, than he probably won't be able to.

"Yes and no." The man shrugs again. "Until you're healed enough to be sent on your way, there's no point to letting you go."

"What about after?"

"We'll see after."

* * *

Joe has no idea how long he spends in that room, with the man who never shares his name, before he wakes up one morning in a hotel room in Saigon, with Cord's dogtags left on other pillow of the bed, and a note written in a language he doesn't know with an unfamiliar name on it.  
There's a wheelchair right next to the bed for him, something that looks far too new for him to trust.

It takes weeks of debriefing and a stack of NDAs before he's sent home with a medical discharge, the wheelchair he'd been gifted in Saigon - from the man who he heard called Adam - and a pension that isn't going to go very far.

He sits on his sister's couch, and wonders what he's going to do now.

* * *

The second time he meets Adam, he's doing a gig at a blues bar, paid in tips and free beer and free food. It's been years, and he's doing well enough. Saving a little bit at a time in the hope of getting prosthetics instead of the chair, and living in his sister's guest room. For the moment, anyway. Joe suspects that's not going to last long past her and her new husband coming back from their honeymoon. James Horton doesn't seem to much like him.

He wheels himself over to the table Adam's sitting at, thanking the server when she brings over a plate of fries and a pint of lager.

"Decided you weren't annoying the US goverment enough in 'Nam?" Joe doesn't wait for Adam to say hello, and doesn't bother to ask how he found Joe. He doesn't think he'd get an answer to that, anyway.

Adam shrugs, a small smile curling the corners of his mouth. "I'm sure someone's panicking about me moving house. I don't see the point in worrying about it unless they show up looking for me."

Joe snorts, taking a few of his fries and using them to keep silent a moment. "What happens if someone does come looking for you?"

The smile vanishes, and Joe catches a brief glimpse of something that makes him shiver. "You'd be better off somewhere else if that does happen."

He's not sure how to respond to that, and silence falls as he eats the fries that are less appealing than when they were brought.

"How're the wheels doing for you?" Adam doesn't even glance at the chair to see if Joe's still using the chair he'd left him with in Saigon.

"Good enough." He's not about to say anything about his plans for getting prosthetics. Joe doesn't want to find out what Adam might do, for good or ill.

Adam hums a moment, and nods, and the silence falls again until Joe's next set. When he's done, Adam is gone again, and Joe isn't sure if he's relieved or disappointed.

* * *

He decides that irritated is a good thing to be with Adam when a real estate agent shows up at his sister's with paperwork and a set of keys a week later. It's a deed to a house, and everything is in order except his signature. An opportunity to get out of his sister's guest room, and away from Horton and his constant silent disapproval.

When he asks the agent if he can take a few days to look everything over, she agrees, and even gives him a post office box address to write to Adam. Or Doctor Pierson as she calls him.

It only takes another week to get a letter back, and the amusement all but radiates off the page.

_No strings attatched, Mr. Dawson. Call it an apology, if you must._

"Apology, my ass," Joe mutters to himself, and wheels himself over to the phone to call the real estate agent. He's not sure he trusts the claim of no strings attatched, but at least he has it in writing.

* * *

Two years, monthly letters, and finding that the bills for the house are also paid for, and he's getting out of a class at the local college when he sees Adam again.

"Do I want to know why you're here again, Doc?" Joe pushes his chair over to where Adam is sprawled on a bench. "Or am I supposed to watch out for men in cheap suits with too-heavy sedans?"

Laughter suits Adam, and Joe carefully doesn't look too closely at the weird twist of emotion in his chest. He can worry about it later, when he's safely at home with a door locked behind him.

"They prefer to wear whatever blends in, and right now, I'm pretty certain I'm being watched by a woman." Adam shrugs, looking over Joe intently. "Let them watch."

Huh. Joe takes a moment to look around what he can see of the campus, making a mental note of where people could hide, where they could pause unobtrusively, or settle in to people-watch. Or Adam-watch. It's been almost a decade since he had to be quite that aware of everything.

"Would you like to get lunch?"

Adam's question makes Joe blink and draw his attention back to him. The invitation is unexpected, but something makes him want to take Adam up on it, no matter how ill-advised it might be.

"Where did you have in mind?"

"There's a nice little diner just down the road. They have decent beer and good sandwiches." Adam's little smile invites Joe to share the joke, even though Joe isn't entirely certain what the joke is. Either the beer or the sandwiches, he expects, and either way, he returns the smile.

"They got stairs?"

"Not one." Adam pushes to his feet, shoving his hands in his pockets as he starts ambling, making it easy for Joe to keep up with him. Or outpace him, if Joe wanted to.

"Good." Too many places don't bother to make things any easier for people with wheelchairs, not even the simplest things like not having stairs. Joe just hopes the doors are wide enough to get in.

Lunch is perfect, the diner surprisingly accessible, and the sandwiches as good as Adam had promised. Joe passes on beer, though. He's still got to get home, and he can't afford being tipsy while out of the house.

Adam walks with him as Joe turns his chair toward home, loose-limbed and unconcerned.

"You know, buying someone a house isn't exactly what most people would get for an apology." Joe doesn't even mention the bills, because that's a whole other kettle of fish.

"Most people don't have to apologize for keeping someone captive." Adam shrugs. "It was easy enough, and you needed somewhere away from Horton."

Joe glances up at Adam, his eyes narrowed. "What do you know about Horton?"

Adam looks away for a long moment, studying the street ahead of them. "He works for the people who watch me. One group of them, anyway. The most annoying of them."

"Huh." Joe waits for a long moment, soaking in the ambient noise of the streets around them as he turns that over in his head. "Gonna tell me why they're interested in you?"

Adam chuckles, looking down. "Because I don't die."

Joe blinks, thinking back to Vietnam and the first time he'd met Adam. When he'd _shot_ Adam, and had been pretty sure he'd killed him. "Have anything to do with why you cut off Cord's head?"

"Yes and no." Adam doesn't elaborate, and Joe doesn't push him about it, silence falling easy and comfortable between them as they make their way back to Joe's house. At the base of the ramp leading up to the door, Adam stops, looking over the house. "I'll be in town for a while. Would you mind getting lunch again sometime?"

Joe watches Adam for a moment, before he shrugs. "Sure. You're paying."

Adam grins, and tilts his head. "Of course."

* * *

He gets six months worth of lunches, coffees, and the odd dinner before Adam vanishes. Doesn't even respond to letters, and Joe wonders if someone had come along and repaid him for what he did to Cord. Or if one of the groups watching Adam had decided to do more than watch.

The bills keep getting paid, though, and Joe saves up the money from playing at bars and the occassional classier venue, what's left after the college classes. He still wants prosthetics, and the VA isn't willing to pay for them. Either because which war he fought in or because of Adam, and he's not sure it matters why anyway.

All that matters is he can watch his savings accumulate, bit by bit, and can count down to getting prosthetics, and everything that comes after.

* * *

He lets himself into his house, and goes still, gripping the cane he's using tightly. There's something off, and it makes the hairs stand on the back of Joe's neck.

"It's just me." Adam's voice is rough, and it takes a moment for Joe to recognize it. It's been nearly a decade this time, and Joe hadn't even gotten so much as a phone call in all that time.

"You know, they make these things called phones. Hell, I even hear they're making mobile phones these days." Joe doesn't move away from the door, trying to decide how much he wants to call a locksmith and get the locks changed. "You don't just break into someone else's house to say hi after eight years."

A dark chuckle comes from his living room, that brings to mind an underground room in Vietnam and a strange man who'd come back from the dead. "Maybe not you. And I didn't break in. I had a key."

"How the hell do you have a key?" Joe slowly walks into his living room, reaching out his free hand to flip the light switch.

Adam is sprawled on the couch, one foot on the floor, and an arm thrown over his face. Trusting Joe not to do anything. Or maybe just trusting Joe won't want to deal with blood on the couch or the floor.

"I have a lot of friends in odd places." Adam doesn't move, and Joe decides it is trust, of some sort. "Do I hear footsteps? Congratulations on the new legs."

Joe makes his way over to his favored chair, letting out a quiet sigh of relief as he takes his weight off the prosthetics. "I'm surprised you never offered to pay for them."

"Being able to get them on your own was important to you. And I had done what I could to make it easier for you to get them."

"And having somewhere you can come and hide doesn't have anything to do with it." Joe leans back in his chair, watching Adam, who still hasn't moved. If he couldn't see Adam breathing, he'd almost think he was dead. He wonders if Adam's lost weight, though it's hard to tell through the baggy sweater and the long coat.

"It's a bonus." Adam is silent a moment before he finally moves, rolling onto his side to face Joe, propping himself up on the arm that had been over his face. His eyes are dark and there's something alien in them that Joe doesn't know how to describe. "I'd say I'm sorry for leaving you like that, but I can't promise not to do it again."

Joe meets Adam's gaze steadily. "You gonna tell me why you didn't come back for eight years? Almost nine now."

"It wasn't safe." Adam pauses, and blinks, the alien something retreating a little. Not gone, just folded and tucked back so it's not front and center. "I like you alive."

"The kind of person looking to cut off your head like you did Cord's?" Joe had been doing some research, and found some interesting things in more recent history, though he's not sure how much of it is useful.

Adam gives him a rueful smile, the alien something tucked a little further away, almost invisible now. Joe wonders if anyone who doesn't know Adam at least as well as he does would even be able to see it. "They're not the kind of people who care about collateral damage."

"They'll still go down if they're shot, at least temporarily, yeah?"

"Most of them." Adam pushes so he's sitting up properly, watching Joe with a curious expression. "Those who wouldn't mostly aren't looking for me."

"Then I have options." Joe shrugs, keeping his attention on Adam, and not straying to where he keeps a gun locked up in the living room. He might have to start keeping a small one on him where he can.

"Good." Adam leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Do you mind if I stay the night?"

Joe watches Adam a moment, before he sighs. "There's a guest room upstairs. That service you hired airs it out once a week."

"Excellent."

* * *

Adam cooks him breakfast in the morning, and makes him a cup of coffee that's one of the best Joe's had in a long time. Joe doesn't ask him how long he's staying this time, not sure if he wants to think about what could be if he does.

What could be if he lets himself think too closely on the emotion he'd never named even in the privacy of his thoughts. That experimenting has left him certain is reserved for Adam. No one else seems to leave him feeling that, regardless of gender.

In the end it doesn't much matter, since Adam leaves again, only a couple weeks after he showed up.

He answers letters this time, at least, and Joe falls into a comfortable routine of chatting through letters that go to a post office box, and ones that come to him with various sorts of stamps, and sometimes collections of post cards from all corners of the world.

* * *

Joe's at a bar again, playing for a moderately packed crowd, when he sees Adam again. Arguing with Leslie, who's kept the most accessible table clear for Joe to sit at between sets, and finally sitting on the table with a smile that makes her take a step back, the tray in her hand coming up defensively.

"Next one is for the Doc. Get your own chair." Joe grins at the exagerrated roll of the eyes Adam gives him before letting himself focus on the next song. It's the last of the set, and he leaves the stage to applause, taking the handful of steps to his table where Adam's gotten up again.

"I've never heard that song." Adam snags a chair from another table, settling himself where he can keep an eye on the door rather than across from Joe. "Something new?"

"One of my own." Joe takes the glass of water from Leslie, and asks if the kitchen could send out burgers for two, on Adam's dime. "I don't play it at other venues."

Places where the patrons wouldn't take kindly to the implications of the song, if they picked them up. And it'd be hard for them to miss if he directs the song at Adam.

Adam sighs, grimacing a moment. "Hopefully that doesn't last." He slouches back in his chair, smiling at Leslie when she brings food and a pint of whatever Adam is drinking. Waiting until she's gone to speak again. "It makes me miss Rome, and I wasn't entirely fond of Rome."

"Rome when?" Joe takes another sip of water before digging into his burger.

"Early empire." Adam smiles slyly when Joe stops chewing to stare at him a moment. "Eat your dinner, Joe."

Taking a breath, Joe finishes the bite, and sets his burger back down. "You're going to expand on that, _Adam_."

Laughing, Adam shrugs, picking up a fry. "Maybe later."

There's one more set before Joe's done for the night, and packs up his guitar. Adam offers to carry it, and it takes a moment before Joe sighs, and surrenders it. "I got a car out in the back lot. That goes in the back seat." He pauses. "Do you need a place to stay while you're in town?"

Adam watches him for a long moment, before tilting his head. "If you don't mind me making breakfast."

Joe is not turning down Adam's coffee, at the very least, and he agrees easily, leading the way out to his car. It had taken half a dozen dealerships to find a car that would work, though at least he'd already been able to find a mechanic who could modify it for Joe to drive. Then it had been six months of relearning how to drive, without legs working pedals before he'd felt safe on the road.

The drive back home passes in easy conversation, though Adam doesn't share any stories about Rome, or when he'd been there. Or how old he is. Or how it is he hasn't aged a day in the two decades since Joe first shot him in Vietnam.

"Guest room still the same?" Adam carries Joe's guitar inside, setting the case where Joe directs him too.

"If you want it." Joe pauses, letting himself think about the feeling curled around inside him when he thinks about Adam.

Adam turns, tilting his head as he watches Joe. "You have to ask, Joe."

"I'm not entirely sure what I'm asking for." Joe leans on his cane, watching Adam. "Not what I've had with other people I've brought home, that doesn't last. But I don't know what you're willing to give me."

"Anything I can, for as long as I can." Adam shoves his hands in his pockets, leaning one hip against the couch the guitar lives behind. "I can't promise to stay."

"Can you promise to come back, when you can?" Joe doesn't move, not yet. This isn't something that he's going to rush, even after twenty years of knowing Adam, fourteen of them spent dancing around whatever they've been building in letters and sporadic visits.

Adam lets out a small laugh, ducking his head. "As often as possible."

* * *

It doesn't really change things. Joe still sleeps alone more often than not, and Adam doesn't manage to stay more than six months of a year, but there are letters and good coffee and good beer, and interesting stories.

It's enough to be content, and that's all Joe had been looking for.


End file.
